Art by Peter Heywood

I have an unusual combination of creative and engineering skills. I worked as a chartered civil engineer for 10 years before making a big career change and becoming a journalist. Later on, I co-founded a successful internet publishing company in the U.S.. We sold it in 2005 and I "retired" in 2007.

Since then I have been developing a career as an artist. I graduated from Plymouth College of Art (PCA) with a 1st Class BA(Hons) in Contemporary Craft in 2018. I would classify myself as an inventor/designer/maker. I don't specialise in a particular material and I want my work to "play to the gallery", as Grayson Perry puts it; I want to amuse and intrigue everyone, not just an art elite, but I also want to encourage people to think.

My work has been selected for various exhibitions. "The Snake pit", my final degree project based on robots, was a "pick of the show" at the London Design Fair in 2018. I've won a number of commissions, including designing the gates for Devonport Column, a Grade 1 monument in Plymouth, the decoration of a giant fibre-glass fish, also in Plymouth and "The Wall", a project for Tate Exchange, PCA's collaboration with Tate Modern. In addition I've undertaken a number of community projects, including "Message in a Bottle", "Rainbow Fish" and "Reindeer".